March Is Here, but So Is Poet Claire Hersom

Tra-la, tra la! March is officially here. Although we Mainers put a brave face on it and even go out for ice cream, we already feel the weight of this too-long month, rightly known as Maine’s fifth season—mud season. So far, there hasn’t been too much mud, but we know it is coming. Yes, we do.

Right now, March, in typical fashion, is whipping us back and forth. One day the weather will be mild with temperatures in the fifties, and the next day there will be a blizzard with over a foot of snow— the forecast for this Wednesday. Mainers take it in stride, but we do complain. A lot. In fact, complaining about March weather is one of our favorite pastimes.

Here is a shot of our backyard as it emerges from winter. Oh, the glory, and it’s just going to get worse. Clif will have to put planks on the walkway so that that he won’t sink into the mud as he hauls wood.

But enough of March! Instead, let us turn our attention to a very fine poet, Claire Hersom. I posted this picture of her a few days ago, but it is so cute—note the sly look on her face—that I thought I’d post it again.

I met Claire about fifteen years ago, when Clif and I published a literary magazine called Wolf Moon Journal. Via the Internet, Claire submitted some of her poems, and I was immediately taken with her use of language and her ability to get to the heart of things. As if good poetry weren’t enough, I also learned that Claire lived less than a mile from me, but somehow, even in our small town, I had never met her. So funny!

Over the years, we featured many of her poems in Wolf Moon, and we became friends. As it so happened, she introduced her nephew, Mike Mulkeen, to our daughter, Shannon, and the two hit it off immediately. This August, they will have been married eight years.

What a lovely cover! As far as I’m concerned, you can never go wrong with blue, and it features snappy art work by her talented granddaughter, Eleanor Rose Folsom.

Claire has generously allowed me to use one of her poems in this post, and I chose “Dreamscape,” also the book’s title. Many, Many thanks, Claire!

Dreamscape

It’s always in the early, dark morning
when a chill lingers from the night air
that we balance and
suspend in so many forms
at the brink of the precipice –
that first glimmer of day, of hope,
the new beginning hardly noticed
were it not for the argument of birds,
the bending, dew-filled pine,
the hollow stamp of deer outlined
in the grass under our windows.
Settled in last night beside you in dream,
they too waited, their warm fawn bodies
of stick-legs and too-big ears listening
for sounds; the same sounds as you,
eyes never too far from a flutter,
never completely at rest.

It’s so cool how poetry brought you this awesome friend. Thanks for sharing this poem it was just like you built it up – she does get to the heart of things. I’d love to hear more about the literary journal was that something you guys made?

Yes, my husband and I published the journal, a very small home-grown affair. It was even printed locally, with mixed results when it came to quality. We published the journal for nine years, but then the Great Recession hit, and it was no longer feasible for us to do this. But we had a nine-year run, and it was a grand adventure.

Lovely poem by Claire, and it reminds me to go back to poetry reading which is such a joy but slips by the wayside in the daily routines of life… Hope you can ignore the coming March weather and read poetry instead!

Another big storm blowing up the East Coast, and this time Maine is going to get hit. Right now, anyway, the forecast is for about a foot of snow with winds that aren’t supposed to be damaging. We shall see. Anyway, good time for reading poetry. 😉